Superman: One Man's Time
by GFJBR1982
Summary: After Superman rescues him and his wife from a major train wreck, Andrew Hunter finds his life taking off in a new direction. No longer satisfied with his chosen path in life, he sets out to develop a higher purpose. Little does he realize where his new choices will take him and the vital role he will play in the man of steel's future as well.
1. Chapter 1

Superman: One Man's Time

Superman created by Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster

Chapter One

I'll never forget the image; the burning red eyes, and the heat. The single most disturbing event of my life had a duality to it. The irony of the situation is that even as the saving grace, the silver lining to the circumstances, he was by far the most terrifying part of the experience. He clearly wasn't there to harm my wife or I. In fact, as we have all come to expect, it was the opposite. The stories are all the same. He drops out of the sky, clad in blue and red, with a single purpose; to help. From the smallest street thugs, to the most formidable alien force imaginable, he has become a symbol of hope and all that is possible in this world.

Few of us ever expect to see him in person. Even for a moment. So when my opportunity came, I could not have been less prepared. And a person truly doesn't understand how fragile their psychological state and sense of what is normal actually is until something like this happens, and then he shows up.

When the AmTrak jumped the rails, we were lounging in our seats. I was reading Scientific American, while my wife was on her tablet, looking up restaurants to try when we reached Metropolis. For a split second I didn't think anything of it. The monotonous clik-clak of the rails was interrupted by a strange creaking, accompanied by a brief rumbling. I looked up from my magazine and my wife and glanced at one another. As I went to look back at the article, all hell broke loose. There was a sudden shockwave and we were thrown from our seats against the adjacent window. As the train car jack-knifed, it subsequently tipped over and we were tossed about like a pinball machine.

After what seemed like an eternity, the car came to rest. I was conscious, but with a ringing in my ears and foggy vision. My instinct was to grab by wife as she lay with her back to me. From being thrown around the car, I could see that both of her arms were broken, she was unconscious, and had a long shard of glass stuck in her thigh. As I attempted to shake the cobwebs from my vision and search for a way out, there was another deep creaking noise, followed by what could only be described as a slow tilting of the Earth. It was at that moment I realized the train car was hanging off the edge of a bridge near the city.

As the car began leaning over the edge of the bridge, everything loose in the car began to fall. I grabbed my wife around the waist and clutched at the seat that was to my left. I had seen Batman Begins many times, and just like Bruce Wayne hanging near a cliff's edge with Ra's al Ghul on his arm, I grunted as loud as I could, and lifted with every ounce of strength in my body. Only later would I notice that I had torn the muscles in my shoulder, but I was able to get her draped over the edge of the seat. After hoisting my wife up, I managed to get both feet onto the back of the seat in the next row. And while I was still attempting to process the chaos of the last couple of minutes, surveying my next move, struggling with every fibre of my being just to hang on; it was then that my own sense of reality was shattered.

Just for a moment, I felt the effects of anti-gravity. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced, and then the entire train car rose up. It might as well have been the whole world. I felt the tug on my whole body as the car swung to the left, back toward the bridge deck, and gently settle. Attempting to disregard the impossibility of a twenty-five ton train car lifting itself back onto a bridge, I pulled my t-shirt off and wrapped it around the glass shard in my wife's leg. Then there he was, looking at me through the broken window. I heard what sounded like the twisting of a submarine valve that had rusted over and practically fused after 70 years of decay. The door at the far end of the car had been bent when it tipped over, which for the average person would have made opening the door by hand practically impossible. In retrospect I realize he was just being delicate, trying not to cause any more damage than had already taken place. But seeing him through the broken glass sliding the disfigured metal could be equated to a tank trying not to crush a rose garden. Still, it forced its way along the rails, opening the door.

He slowly made way toward us, checking for other passengers in the car. Not seeing any he shifted his focus on my wife and I. It took a moment to notice, but he was actually floating down the aisle, about three inches off the floor. I immediately froze, not believing my own eyes. Being able to tell I was in shock was an obvious call for him. He clearly deals with people in my condition all the time. I couldn't even blink. He slowly touched down and put his hand on my shoulder. I had never felt anything so powerful, yet so non-threatening.

"Are you alright?" he softly said.

Through my stupor I was able to get out four words.

"Can you help her?" I stammered.

"Let's have a look."

He picked her up and placed her on the floor of the car. Looking her over, he seemed to notice a major problem.

"The glass in her leg has sliced the femoral artery. The paramedics won't be here in time. I need to cauterize it. Do you understand?"

I continued staring at him, stupefied. He smiled, seemingly amused by me.

"Don't worry. She'll be fine."

He lightly pulled the shard out of her leg. There was a quick shot of blood that poured out onto the floor.

"Ok. You might even feel this a little."

His eyes began to glow a deep red, like the setting sun. The heat was so intense, I felt as though a welding torch would seem mild. A fine beam of light emitted from his eyes into the wound on my wife's leg. It only took a couple seconds. But the image seared its way into my memory. He took my shirt and tied it around her thigh for pressure. He then looked at me again.

"Can you walk?"

I managed to nod.

"Ok. Follow me. We need her to be ready for the paramedics."

He carefully placed her arms across her body, and then picked her up. I followed toward the door. I couldn't help but stare at his cape. The absolutely silly thought of "How does he keep that thing so clean?" came to mind.

As we exited the car, the destruction became apparent. Two of the cars had plunged into the river after tearing their way through the steel supports and guardrail of the bridge deck. I looked down the bridge. There were fifteen people sitting on the bridge, soaking wet, some injured. There were another ten lying motionless further up the bridge. I didn't have to ask. In the shortest of time he had pulled twenty-five people from submerged train cars, saving a small majority of them. I suspected the ones that perished, were killed instantly. In the distance, I could see the front several cars had stopped and people were running toward the wreckage to help. We could hear sirens and helicopters in the distance.

Superman laid my wife on the bridge deck and looked to me.

"Keep her warm." He instructed.

Again I managed a nod. He gave me a caring smile, rose up off the ground about five feet, and took off toward the rear section of the train. He had many more people to save. After the wave of air rushed past by face, I softly spoke.

"Thank you."

Sitting down, I pulled my wife close and hugged her. At that moment, she finally began to come around. She slowly opened her eyes, and winced in pain as the sensations hit her. The emotions came flooding in for me as I realized what he had done for us. As tears began flowing, I stroked my wife's hair.

"Help will be here soon honey. He saved you." I said through the tears.

"Who saved me?" she managed through the pain.

" _He_ did. I love you." I replied softly.

It wasn't until weeks later that I realized how my experience with him had affected my life and its direction.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The following days were important to rest and heal. My concussion symptoms began to alleviate and once her condition was deemed to be stable, Kelly was transferred to our home town of South Livingston, about two hundred miles west of Metropolis. While her recovery was going well, the fractures to her arms showed significant improvement early, we still had to be careful with her leg. Superman had taken care of the most urgent and dangerous part of her injury, but the muscle and tissue would take time to heal before Kelly would be able to function at a hundred percent.

Within a week, she was deemed fit to at least go home, although she wouldn't be able to go back to work until her wounded leg allowed her to walk freely again. She worked as a lab engineer at this tech corporation called Shroud. From what Kelly shared with me, they were a company that researched and built everything from aircraft engines, heavy construction equipment and computers, to alternate sources of power. From what I knew of them, they weren't as large or as publicly visible as LexCorp or S.T.A.R. Labs, but were still looking to be a leader in tech innovation.

Once home, she immediately expressed her desire to get back to work. Her Division dealt with the application and development of alternate power sources. It had become a cliché that that moving away from fossil fuels was the path to a new level of sustainability for humanity. Still, she took great pride in what she was helping to generate and she honestly believed that Shroud was paving the way for a level of energy production unmatched in the history of mankind. Before our accident she had been working on a project that had something to do with harnessing the energy produced by the fusion reactions occurring within the sun. It went way beyond capturing photons for conventional solar energy. I really didn't understand it completely, but it had everything to do with the reactions themselves.

After a week of binge-watching crime dramas on TV, she uttered her frustrations when I returned home from work.

"Alright honey, I can't take this anymore. I need to get back to work." She said.

"Is it really that bad? You've only been home a week." I skeptically responded, even though I knew better.

"If I'm not working on Red Star, I feel useless. A week. It might as well be a year. I'm freaking out thinking they'll break this thing wide open without me." She said becoming agitated.

I smiled. Her level of determination and push to get things done were just a couple of things that I loved about her. She was incredibly intelligent, having graduated from the University of Texas, cared deeply about everyone she knew, and had a mental strength that I could only hope to try and emulate.

"Just relax. You can't even fully use your arms for another few weeks." I stated, trying to reason with her.

"You know most of my work automated. All I have to do is plug calculations into the computer. Besides the other lab techs can work with any mechanical issues."

Shroud had begun using quantum computers in their research, which made for incredibly quick computation of increasingly complex problems. Red Star was being kept hush-hush, but from what Kelly was allowed to reveal, the computer in her lab had been working around the clock for months trying to reconcile an issue involving loss of energy in a certain form of fusion reaction.

"Just take it easy." I said. "Superman gave us a chance to make sure that the things we want to accomplish in life can actually happen. You'll do what you set out to do."

Just saying those words hit me harder than I thought they would. I wasn't the type to make profound statements about life. But after witnessing Superman, his abilities, and ironically his compassionate humanity, anything less would have seemed like an inappropriate joke.

Kelly smiled at me, her blue eyes glistening in the late afternoon sun. She had a way of making my heart race every time she did. Even after five years together, I still had a hard time believing that she chose me. She was so beautiful it was almost frustrating, and she could have been with any man she wanted.

"You're smarter than you think." She said softly.

"Don't look at me like that." I stated

"Why not?" She replied through a sexy grin.

I walked over to the couch, kneeling beside her. "Because, you know how much that turns me on."

"Sure do. Sorry, I know we'd better not."

"You just relax. I'm pretty sure I can handle the situation."

I leaned in and kissed her. Her soft lips always lit me up immediately. She pushed her chest into mine in the way she always did.

"Put your arms up." I said softly.

"What about your shoulder?" she asked.

"This is worth the pain." I replied with a smile.

"Be careful." She responded.

She raised her arms over her head and I slipped her t-shirt off passed the casts on her arms, revealing her amazing figure. She was an athlete in school and made All-Conference in Track and Field. Since graduation she had focused on her work but continued to train quite intensively. I pulled her close and she wrapped her legs around my waist. As she rested her arms on my shoulders, I stood up with her draped on me.

"Bedroom. Now." She said.

"Yes ma'am." I answered.


End file.
